PT Telkom of Indonesia suffered a satellite malfunction on August 25^th on its Telkom-1 satellite. It is not entirely clear whether there’s a problem with the Lockheed Martin-built satellite, launched in 1999, or some sort of operator error. However, PT Telkom is talking of making an insurance claim and thus seemingly accepting that the problem is not recoverable.

The Indonesian islands are home to more than 260 million people, and many get their TV from cable systems, while PT Telkom also operates its Pasifik Satelite Nusantara subsidiary.

PT Telkom says it has about 12,000 VSAT dishes looking at Telkom-1 (at 108 degrees East) and another 3,000 dishes for other communications. These 15,000 dishes will need to be repointed to Telkom-2 or Telkom-3S craft.

However, PT Telkom was in the process of either ‘selling’ or leasing part of its payload to Intelsat.

A Telkom-4 satellite, designed to back-up and replace Telkom-1, is being built by Space Systems/Loral and currently due for launch towards the end of 2018.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Bank: SES/Intelsat merger worthwhile?
2. Bank: LBG Media rated Buy
3. Kuiper, OneWeb agree on orbital debris
4. SpaceX claims 5G interference from Dish Network
5. Musk shows no mercy
6. Intelsat looks to wrap bankruptcy claims
7. Bank: Video games weathering recession
8. Bank: “Difficult to make Starlink work financially”
9. Disney+ and Netflix: Ads to the rescue?

Categories: Blogs, DTH/Satellite, Inside Satellite